When packaging the above-mentioned articles, the conventinal practice is to enclose a predetermined number of the articles in the vinyl bag and then seal the bag by heating and fusing the opening of the vinyl bag using a sealing apparatus having fusing means such as a heater. Thus, the vinyl bag sealing operation is performed through human intervention. Consequently, there is the danger of the operator being burned during the fusing operation, so that safety measures are required at such time.
Another problem is that sealing errors tend to occur when the vinyl bag clamping position shifts during fusing or when the opening of the vinyl bag is not clamped sufficiently.
Furthermore, when packaging the above-mentioned articles continuously, a predetermined number of the articles are enclosed in a vinyl tube. While this is being done, the tube is formed into interconnected vinyl bags by fusing the tube at predetermined intervals, after which the sealed portions are severed by a cutter or the like to separate the tube into individual bags. However, since each sealed portion must be cut individually for each and every bag, the cutting operation is laborious and a continuous packaging operation cannot be carried out.
In addition, since the individual bags are separated from the tube by the cutting operation involving human intervention, the cutting position readily shifts. The resulting cutting error can cause the articles to spill out of the erroneously cut portion on the side of the vinyl tube or on the side of the individual bag, thus causing articles to be lost.